Arce vs. Donaire official for 12/15; Rigondeaux-Poonsawat possible for undercard

By Chris Williams: Dan Rafael is reporting on his twitter that the December 15th fight between WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (30-1, 19 KO’s) and little 5’4″ Jorge Arce (61-6-2, 46 KO’s) is now official. The fight, which is one of Donaire’s typical mismatches, will take place at the Toyota Center, in Houston, Texas, USA.

It looks like Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is staging it in Texas in order to take advantage of the large Mexican community over there. Arce definitely has more potential to bring in huge numbers of fans to fill an arena than does Donaire at this point in Donaire’s career. Arce a popular fighter in Mexico, whereas Donaire is still pretty much limited to a certain segment of the U.S.

The Rigondeaux-Kratingdaenggym has the potential to be a competitive fight, whereas the Donaire-Arce fight is just a bout between a popular Mexican fighter in Arce who is fighting out of his weight class against a guy that’s going to destroy him. Arce is going to get blown out in a sick, sick mismatch. I hope Arum is going give Arce a good payday because Arce is going to get stomped in this fight.

It’s hard to tell how good Kratingdaenggym is because he’s fought so many poor opponents. He’s got a good record but just so many awful opponents that you can’t gauge whether he’s a legit contender. All I know is he got beaten by a very average Wladimir Sidorenko six years ago by a 12 round decision. Sidorenko in turn was destroyed by Donaire two years ago by a 4th round knockout.

I rate Rigondeaux as a better fighter than Donaire, so it might not be a good between Rigondeaux and Kratingdaenggym. But I still think it’s a MUCH better fight than the non-fight in the main event between Donaire and Arce. That’s not a good fight at all, but I can see Arce pulling in a lot of Mexican fans to come watch it at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas on December 15th. The Toyota Center has a seating capacity of 18,000 and that would be interesting if Arce can pull in that many fans to see this mismatch.